


Orphans and Exiles

by thisbluespirit



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Community: crossoverbingo, Crossover, Gen, Pre-Canon, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:41:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21615508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisbluespirit/pseuds/thisbluespirit
Summary: While on the run, Emma encounters a very weird guy in the park, one who says he needs her help...
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10
Collections: Crossover Bingo





	Orphans and Exiles

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the square "perfume" in crossoverbingo Round 1.

“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you, young lady,” said the guy in the clown’s coat, suddenly looming over Emma Swan. He sounded British. “It’s quite lethal. You wouldn’t live to regret it.”

Emma stared down at the object beside her feet in the grass. She gave him a doubting look, and wrinkled her nose. “It’s just an old perfume bottle.”

“Things are not always what they appear,” said the stranger, shooing her a few steps back as he crouched down to examine the bottle. Its blue cut-glass gleamed in the sunlight. “It may look like a perfume bottle, but what it contains is most assuredly _not_ perfume. At least,” he added, glancing up with a smile, “not any you or I would choose to wear. Some natives of Thoros Beta have been known to use it as such, but then that’s hardly a recommendation, is it?”

Emma stuffed her hands in her pockets. She’d seen it flash from across the park and had wondered what it was. Maybe someone had dropped something useful, or a bottle of soda. She’d been chased out of a store earlier and she didn’t have anything left to eat or drink on her.

“Now, I have a favour to ask of you, Miss, er – do you have a name?” he asked as he wrapped the bottle up carefully in a garish handkerchief and glanced up at her again. He had a cat badge on his lapel, she noticed.

“I’m Emma,” she said and squinted her face against the sun as she watched him. “Are you from the circus or something?”

He laughed, rising to his feet again. “I suppose you could say that. Aren’t we all? Well, Emma, I’m the Doctor, and I could use your help – if you’d be so kind.”

Emma knew she should shake her head and walk on. He might call the police, or worse, he might be the sort of stranger that she ought to call the police about, but she was bored and hungry, and she didn’t know where she was going to go next. “Maybe,” she said. “Depends what it is.”

“Cautious,” said the Doctor. “Very wise. The problem is deadly serious, but there is at least a simple solution if you’re willing to oblige. You see, my friend Peri made the same mistake you nearly did – she thought this was perfume. Now she’s very sick. I’ve got most of the ingredients I need back in the – ah – in my mobile laboratory and now this nasty little thing is safely out of the way of anybody else, I shall put together an antidote. However, I need a sample of human blood – that is to say, a sample of the right blood type.”

Emma kept her hands firmly in her pockets, not liking the sound of that. It would probably involve needles and things. “I might not be,” she pointed out. “I don’t know what type I am.”

“You’ll be perfect,” he said and then waved a hand about grandly. “I’m a Doctor. I can tell these things from a glance. But,” he added, giving her a closer look, “you need proof. Fair enough. Stand well back.” He pulled the perfume bottle back out of his pocket and let one drop fall onto the grass. The green blades immediately shrivelled up and turned yellow.

Emma’s eyes widened in alarm. “What is it – like acid or something?”

“Something,” said the Doctor, and his tone had grown very solemn. 

Emma stared hard at him and felt sure he wasn’t lying. She knew when people were lying. And if he really had a friend who needed her help, well, she could do that. Nobody would go to that sort of trouble to trick her back into the system. They always came after her in straight-forward, official-people ways. 

“Okay,” she said. “Do we have to go to the hospital? Because I can’t do that.” A hospital would have forms, and they’d want full names and birth dates, and they’d have the sorts of people who definitely _would_ send her to another home hanging around there too.

“No, no, only over there,” said the Doctor, pointing to an improbable blue shed that Emma had supposed was part of the park furniture for some reason. “My, er, mobile lab, as I said.”

She took a step back, on examining it more closely. “It says police box.”

“Didn’t I already tell you that appearances can be deceiving?” he said, walking off towards it, and then turned back. “If you must know, I stole it.”

Emma raised her eyebrows and trailed after him, impressed despite herself. “You stole a box from the cops?”

“Not precisely,” said the Doctor. “Besides, they don’t use them any more – it’s what you might call an obsolete model. And it’s from London, not California.”

Emma halted at the door. “Uh. You do know this is Minnesota, right?”

“ _Is_ it?” said the Doctor. “Ah. Peri did say something about my driving. That must have been what she meant. Never mind, it’s all much the same on a universal scale – hardly worth mentioning! Now, wait here, I shan’t be a moment.”

He disappeared into the box. Emma waited outside. There clearly wasn’t room for her and the Doctor inside it, plus she was pretty sure that not going inside weird stolen police boxes with strangers was one of those rules you should never break even when you were on the run.

He emerged with a sort of white plastic box and said, “Hold out your hand.”

Emma hesitated. “Will it hurt?”

“The tiniest pin prick, that’s all, and you’ll save a life.”

“Okay.” Emma stretched out her hand and closed her eyes, waiting for the moment of pain, but it really wasn’t more than a pin prick, and then the Doctor removed the box, checking the readings on the top, where there were a lot of dials and buttons.

He glanced at her. “Yes, yes, this should do. Thank you! Now for Peri –”

The Doctor went inside the box again, and Emma sat down on the grass, leaning against it. She could feel a sort of humming coming from within it. It was kind of soothing. She leant her head against it and closed her eyes while she waited, and hoped she was right about him telling the truth, but she _was_ pretty good at spotting lies. She’d had some practice lately.

It was a few minutes before the Doctor returned, and when he did, he sat down beside her, mopping his forehead with a different handkerchief, this one yellow with red spots on it. He looked across at Emma. “That seems to have done the trick. I am entirely in your debt, Emma.”

“No problem,” she said, and wished her difficulties could be solved so easily. She bit back a small sigh.

He gave her a long glance. “You know, there was something rather unusual about your blood sample.”

“Unusual?” said Emma, lifting her head. “I’m okay. I’m not sick or anything.”

“Oh, no, no. Nothing like that. I doubt any current Earth – I mean, I doubt any Minnesota hospitals would have picked up on it. A good unusual, I’d say, don’t worry. You must be a very special young lady.”

Emma pulled a face.

“You’re a life-saver in any case,” said the Doctor firmly, “and therefore most certainly a very special young lady in my book.”

Emma turned pink, finding it harder to handle a compliment than the idea that her blood might be peculiar in some way. She shrugged. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Nevertheless,” said the Doctor, “payment is due.” And he pulled a handful of coins and notes out of his pocket. “Now, which of these are the right ones?”

Emma examined them and picked out some notes, quarters and dollars from amongst what looked like a collection of shopping lists, plastic toys, polished stones, sweets, and oddly shaped metal pieces.

“Make good use of them,” he said. He gave her a more serious, considering look. “Perhaps you might need to telephone someone? Let them know where you are, eh? You’re a little young to be out on your own, aren’t you?”

She pocketed the loose change. “They don’t care,” she said. “Nobody does. I don’t have a mom or dad. Just foster homes, and they never work out.” She gave another shrug and glared at the horizon.

“Ah,” said the Doctor. “I see.” He sounded as if he really did.

“You ran away too,” she said. “From the circus.”

He nodded. “More to than from, if I’m honest. But, yes. I’m a runaway, too. And a thief, of course. Still,” and he picked himself up as he spoke, “you save enough of that for one last telephone call if you need it. I was a little older than you when I ran away – and I had company. Take care, Miss -?”

“Swan,” she said, since she’d already told him too much. One more thing didn’t matter. “I’m Emma Swan.”

“So you are,” he returned. “Very fitting, I suspect.”

Emma walked across the park towards the road, and hopefully a store where she could buy pop-tarts, and when she looked back, she couldn’t see the Doctor’s weird police box at all. It had vanished, as if she’d imagined it, like something out of a story book. She shrugged to herself, and moved on.


End file.
